


No One Else Can Break My Heart Like You

by Darkflower



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Bullying, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Destruction, Self-Harm, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-17 02:05:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9299315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkflower/pseuds/Darkflower
Summary: “Who the hell are you?”“Derek...Derek Hale?”“What are you? How do you know my name? What are you doing here?“I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to trespass.”“Well you are trespassing.”“There hadn’t been anybody here for six years. But that is...beside the point. I am sorry. I didn’t mean to...I haven’t taken anything or vandalised...anything. I swear. I just...”“Get. Out.”“I am going. I am leaving. Right...now.”Derek glared at the young girl in red plaid and blue jeans, following her movements with narrowed eyes as she gathered up her belongings which were spread on the charred floor of his childhood home.The home that was burnt down six years ago with his entire family inside.





	1. Chapter 1

“Who the hell are you?”

“Derek....Derek Hale?”

“What are you? How do you know my name? What are you doing here?

“I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to trespass.”

“Well you are trespassing.”

“There hadn’t been anybody here for six years. But that is...beside the point. I am sorry. I didn’t mean to...I haven’t taken anything or vandalised...anything. I swear. I just...”

“Get. Out.”

“I am going. I am leaving. Right...now.”

Derek glared at the young girl in red plaid and blue jeans, following her movements with narrowed eyes as she gathered up her belongings which were spread on the charred floor of his childhood home.

The home that was burnt down six years ago with his entire family inside.

Derek’s temper rose with every second as the girl struggled with her things. There were books, notepads, art papers, pencils and a thousand odd little knick-knacks. She finally managed to insert everything into her tattered backpack and shove the rolled-up art papers into a carrying tube. Derek sniffed her as she slinked past him. She smelt of pinecones and sunshine, pure and unadulterated and also faintly of green apples, probably her shampoo. She didn’t have any scent that indicated she was a threat or worse still, had any traces of of gunpowder or wolfsbane.

Not a hunter then.

But that didn’t mean he should lessen his menacing scowl as she fidgeted at the door (which was kind of redundant, what with the enormous hole in the wall through which sunlight streamed in, illuminating the otherwise bleak room),  turned back and took a couple of steps towards him.

What now!

Her scent hit his nostrils again. He concentrated on the chemo-signals this time. She was smelling of grief, regret, embarrassment and surprisingly a brief thrill of something close to happiness, though the last one was so subtle that it could be totally his imagination.

She smelt of sunshine, but she was not a very happy girl.

“Catch!”

She threw something at Derek and her movement was so abrupt that Derek automatically caught it. _It_ turned out to be a small bar of kit-kat.

Derek looked up at her, so completely taken aback that he forgot to glower at her for a moment.

“Welcome back home.” Her smile quivered in her lips, like she was uncertain. It was not flirtatious or shy, as girls usually tended to smile at him. Her heartbeat didn’t falter either, indicating her words were completely genuine.

Huh!

Derek stared at her as her smile faltered and then she turned round and almost bolted out of the door.

He looked down at his right hand which was clutching the kit kat in a white-knuckled grip like a moron and he suddenly realised he was still holding his duffel bag with his left. He let it drop with a thud and strained his ear for the sound of the girl moving away. It was _her_ bicycle that was resting against the broken porch outside then.

Derek frowned inwardly. It was a long way from the nearest house in town and the girl evidently came here quite often, given the lingering traces of her scent around the house rising above the overwhelming stench of ashes and soot and mould.

Who the hell was she and why was she hanging out here all by herself?

He shook his head, dismissing the girl altogether. He needed to find Laura, like yesterday and he needed to ignore this increasingly empty feeling clawing inside his chest.

Laura could not die on him too. She simply couldn’t. He wouldn’t survive it if she did. 


	2. Chapter 2

“It’s you again?” Derek thundered, opening the front door abruptly.

The girl whipped her head back and at the same time tried to stand up and move away because Derek knew his voice was scary, bordering on dangerous.

A lot of things happened at the same time. The tip of her shoe was caught in a hole on the porch step on which she had been sitting as she leapt up and instead of backing away from the house as she had no doubt intended, she was falling face down into a graceless heap while the clipboard she was cradling on her lap flew away from her, landing into the dirt.

“Fuck!” She exclaimed loudly, trying to sit up.

Derek’s nostril was filled with the sharp tang of blood and pain.

Fuck! Derek thought, internally. He didn’t intend to hurt her, scare her away for sure, but not cause actual physical harm purposefully.

He leapt down from the porch and crouched in front of her. She pulled herself into a sitting position and curled inward instantly, crunching her face in pain.

“Fuck!” She said again, clutching her leg. Her ankle was twisted into an odd angle and she was bleeding a little from a small cut high on her cheek.

“Are you hurt?” Derek asked unnecessarily.

“No, I am fucking peachy.” The girl glared at him, while backing away from him immediately until her back hit the porch. “Why would you do that, you gigantic moron?”

Derek realised she was not talking about her hurt ankle, but was pointing towards her sketch which was lying face down on mud (it had rained yesterday) a couple of feet away from them and was probably completely ruined.

“Why did you...” Derek was flooded with the smell of a wave of pain again.

Some of her wounds were old and some were recent. She was hiding cuts and bruises and a lot of hurt, both physical and emotional. She was also smelling scared for the first time, and Derek realised because he was unconsciously looming.

It gave him a pause.

Why would a teenage girl, who looked completely healthy otherwise, smell of injuries when there was no visible sign of them? And to think that he had caused a fresh one on top of those. He shook his head, looking over at the girl who was hunched down again. He was not completely heartless, damn it. He had human cousins and he knew with humans untreated wounds can be really painful and the girl was biting her lips hard not to cry out.

God, why did he think it was a good idea to spook the girl again?

“Can you stand?” He asked and the girl shot him a dirty glare.

“Ok, so you cannot stand and you cannot ride your bicycle obviously.” Derek said impatiently. “I will give you a lift home then. Or to the hospital.”

“No need.” The girl gritted her teeth. “I just...I will call my brother and he can pick me up.”

She already had her mobile in her hand.

“At least, let me help you sit up on the porch.” Derek said impatiently.

“I can do it on my own.” The girl said angrily.

Derek heard the call going to the voicemail. The girl looked uncertain for the first time.

“Will you let me give you a lift now or are you going to still insist on calling in the cavalry.”

The girl looked utterly pissed.

“I think it is just a stupid sprain.” Her voice was uncertain, even though her face was a stoic mask. “Maybe I can go home on my own.”

“Why don’t you try to stand up then?” Derek challenged.

The girl narrowed her eyes at him and tried precisely that, propping herself up against the lip of the porch. She was clearly hurting, but she didn’t utter a single word until she was sitting gingerly on the porch, carefully not putting weight on her left foot.

“I think I will need that lift.” She said in a defeated tone.

Derek’s eyebrows rose to the hairline. Didn’t she have any friend other than her brother? At her age, she should be surrounded with friends.

Well, not his lookout, was it now?

“Ok.” He nodded, straightening up.

Then he bent down to pick up the clipboard from the dirt. He flipped it and held back a gasp. It was the rough pencil sketch of a massive wolf, howling to the moon. It was breathtakingly beautiful even in the unfinished stage. The grass stains had probably ruined it for good, but still he was mesmerised, looking at the kind of detailing that had gone into the sketch, like each strand of fur of the beautiful animal was drawn in loving details.

“This is a wolf.” He said, tonelessly.

The girl looked up and rolled her eyes.

“It is a part of a series. My college project.”

“Your college project is wolves.”

“It is called _red and the wolf_.” She said. “Don’t judge, I know it is not cool. Everybody is doing abstract, post-modern shits and I am just...well, fuck it all, I like it. I love it. I cannot draw anything that I don’t like.”

Derek caught on to the defensive tone in her voice and he almost said it aloud that it was not _not cool_ , in fact it was quite amazing, but he hadn’t come back to this shitty town to give moral support to people trespassing on his property.

“I am sorry to trespass again.” The girl was saying before he could open his mouth. “I swear, I didn’t mean to, but this is about the only place where I can...I can concentrate enough to draw. It has been kind of my place you know for the last few years.”

No, Derek didn’t know and he didn’t want to know.

The girl probably saw it in his face because she marched on.

“I mean, I understand if you want to throw me out of here, but this is the only place where I can breathe nowadays. Because I am...” she shook her head frustrated, “I tried. I really tried last two days, but nothing would come to me. The canvas just remained blank and I know I shouldn’t depend on it and that it is not even rational, but I thought I would come anyway and beg you to give me some time to finish my project at least.”

She looked at Derek, giving her full attention.

“I swear, I am not going to disturb you. You wouldn’t even know I was here.”

“No.” Derek shook his head.

His home was the tomb of his family now. This stranger had no business to invade his privacy like this.

“Please. I will only come when you are away. I came down to ask for your permission today.”

“You don’t have it.”

The girl looked like she would open her mouth again, but Derek just glared at her with his arms crossed on his chest.

She hung her head, defeated and her scent changed from faintly hopeful to completely crushed.

Derek didn’t know why it was so important to her, but he was not ready to trust a human girl near his house again, even though there was nothing left to burn any more.

Except for him.

That suddenly reminded him...

“How did you know who I am?” He asked. “The day before yesterday?”

The girl looked up and her eyes had gone even sadder.

“You don’t remember me at all.” She said. “Well, I don’t blame you. I came here only once. With Joyce.”

Derek jolted at the name of his younger cousin, another victim to the fire. She would have been nineteen if she were alive.

“I kind of knew Cora too.” She bit on her lip, smelling anxious.

“How did you know me instantly?” The girl smelt sad, for him and Derek was having none of it.

“I...I was there at the station.” She looked away.

“When?” Derek asked through clenched teeth.

“Hey, I brought something for you.” She abruptly changed the topic and hopped off the porch and immediately sat back, yelping in pain.

“Shit, shit, shit...” her eyes were watering in agony as she had unwittingly stepped on her injured foot.

Derek’s hands moved on their own accord as he jerked forward, grabbing her gently by the shoulder so that she didn’t topple over.

The girl immediately flinched and Derek removed his hands as if burned.

And then he knew for certain.

“Are you getting bullied at school?” He asked, even though it was none of his business.

But the smell of stale, dried blood, the lingering injuries, the flinches, the sudden smell of fear, the lack of friends – all of these pointed to something glaringly obvious.

“What...no!”

Lie.

“Try that again.” Derek said flatly. “Not that it matters to me. But you might want to have a chat with the school counsellor. Or your parents.”

He didn’t know why he was offering advice to this unknown kid. But she was a friend of Joyce. What would he have done if Joyce smelt like this? She was a human too.

“I don’t,” the girl’s eyes rested on his belligerent expression for a couple of seconds.

“Well, it is not exactly...I mean I can handle it.” Then she suddenly looked self-conscious. “And it is none of your fucking business. So just help me gather my things and give me that lift already.”

Derek shrugged. Well, he tried!

They were silent as Derek shoved all her belongings into her backpack and then he turned and raised an eyebrow at the girl. She would need his help, but it must be her call.

“Just bring the car over here and open the passenger door.” She said, tiredly. “I will manage to hobble inside.”

Derek stalked off towards his car and brought it as close as he could to the porch, opening the passenger-side door for the kid. Other than that, he made no move to help her. Even when she clearly struggled to cover the distance of a couple of foot and had a very difficult time to fold her body into the low passenger seat of the Camaro, he just stared ahead, expressionless.

She chose this ordeal herself.

The car ride was silent barring the quiet instructions given out occasionally by the girl.

Soon Derek was parking in front of a quaint albeit small house in a decent, middle-class neighbourhood. It didn’t look like anybody was home.

“Right.” The girl muttered.

Derek suddenly understood why, because she would have a considerable amount of difficulty getting into the house.

“I should have taken you to the hospital.” Derek couldn’t help a little bit of worry sip into his voice. The girl’s ankle had swollen up and it was not a pretty sight.

“It will heal.” She said dismissively, but made no move to get out.

Derek breathed in and out and counted to ten in his head.

He was yet to find Laura and was yet to catch either the scent or the glimpse of the elusive alpha roaming into the preserve who was the cause of Laura’s sudden trip to Beacon Hills.

He did not have the _time_ for his shit!

“I got you a blueberry pie.” She suddenly said, looking ahead.

“What?” Derek stared at her.

“Just look into my backpack. It is in the brown paper bag.”

Derek was still staring.

“I was kind of hoping to bribe you.” She finally turned her head and met his gaze, grimacing. “I made it myself and my dad says it is better than Ricco’s, which if you have ever tasted their pies, is saying something.”

Derek had in fact.

“Please just,” she huffed, “...I am not going to disturb you again. It is just a pie. Take it.”

Derek rolled his eyes and got her backpack from the backseat and shoved into her lap. It didn’t feel right to rummage through a girl’s backpack. The said girl gave him a strange look, but she fished out the brown paper bag in question with the pie inside and it smelled like pure heaven.

Derek’s mouth watered and he realised the last meal he had eaten were the awful tacos almost a day back.

The girl held out the brown paper bag and he took it from her, hoping it didn’t mean he was obliged to give in to her request.

She smiled at him and opened the passenger door.

“Wait.” Derek blurted out and was out of the car in a flash. “I will help you get inside.”

The girl looked up at him, unsure, as he offered his hand as support.

Derek didn’t initiate physical contact with anybody other than Laura. He hated it when a stranger touched him and it was not because he was annoyed by it. Derek knew the root went far deeper than that.

But even he had his limits.

So he wiggled his fingers at her impatiently in a universal gesture of _come on out_. He ignored the way the girl’s eyes darted over his face warily and the way her scent spiked with acute uncertainty and nervousness as she slowly reached out and placed her hand into his. He ignored the wild drumming of her heart as he gently helped her get out of the car and gripped her wrist to wrap her right arm around her shoulder, bracing her up. He ignored the anxiety pouring out of her the entire way, which overwhelmed even the scent of pain, until he got her inside the house and lowered her gently on the couch in the living room.

He lowered her backpack on the couch and turned to leave.

“Thank you.”

He turned back at the sincerity in her voice. She was looking pathetic and small and in pain and a part of Derek wished he could do more. But he had other priorities and taking care of a complete stranger was not anywhere into his jobchart.

He nodded curtly and left, almost sure it was the last time he had seen her.

It was when he was pulling up in front of his home that he realised that he hadn’t even asked her name and she had never offered.

Well, it didn’t matter now did it?

He needed to concentrate on finding Laura or the alpha and forget about that stupid kid.

The blueberry pie was divine though, every bit as good as it smelt.


	3. Chapter 3

Derek could hear her from at least a half a mile away. Could pick up the distinct thump-thump of her heart, beating quicker than swallow wings. Along with a dull sound at a rhythmic interval and Derek didn't know what to make of it. But he knew for certain there was pain involved and blood.

She had kept her promise and kept out of of his way, of Hale property and was on the opposite side of the preserve. It was farthest from the town limit and the trees there were denser and wilder. How the hell did she manage to cycle up to there with her damaged ankle?

She cried out and cursed loudly and Derek increased his pace. Normally he wouldn't visit this side of the forest, because he was not even sure if it was at all a part of Hale territory, but he was desperate. It had been five days and he was yet to find Laura. Derek's wolf was tearing at the seams and the creeping feeling of dread was making him numb, terrified, thinking of all the gruesome possibilities.

Right now the girl seemed like an obstacle and Derek really hated her. She had this habit of popping up at when he least expected it. He decided to put the fear of God into the girl today so that she stayed out of the forest for good. It is not safe, damn it!

He had no difficulty finding the girl in a small clearing and he took position behind a thick tree trunk, out of her view. He was just readying himself to let out a terrifying howl (which was usually enough to scare any human away) when the girl threw a punch - at the fucking tree trunk.

It was then that Derek noticed the white gauges wrapped around her knuckles and they were doing absolutely nothing to protect her flesh. He suddenly remembered the riding gloves with cut off fingers she had been wearing on both the occasions he had seen her. She danced away clumsily, not putting weight on her left foot and then she was at it again. Right and left, right and left, dancing away and coming at it again. Except for the injured left foot, she moved like she knew what she was doing and was pretty good at it. But then she was punching a tree trunk in the middle of a motherfucking forest, all by herself, when she should have been at school.

The next punch landed harder than the previous one and Derek winced at the dull sound of the impact and the muffled scream that tore from her throat.

Jesus!

Derek wanted to wrench his eyes away for this was something else. There was something primal in the stench of rage and grief surrounding the girl, there was something broken in her expression, but for his life he couldn't bring himself to look away. He stared with a sick fascinating at the horrorfest in front of him.

And then she brought her knee and hit the tree trunk and almost toppled over for her ankle hadn't healed, obviously.

That was it. Derek moved like lightening without bothering to be subtle and stood between the tree and the girl. Her next punch hit his palm which he had put before his face and he grabbed her hand and twisted it, hard, making the girl cry out in surprise and pain.

"What the hell do you think you are doing?" Derek was utterly pissed off. 

The girl was distracting him again and again, turning up at places she had no business to be, making him involved in her affairs. He didn't want to get involved with anything. He just wanted to find his sister and leave this town.

"Why?" Derek growled again, easing his grip, but not letting go of her fist.

"I..." she looked at Derek, at her fist trapped in his hand then away. "I did not get back to your house."

"But you are still in my way."

She looked at him and snatched her hand from his grip, her scent sharpening with anger again. Derek allowed the movement and crossed his arms, staring the girl down. She just stubbornly refused to meet his eyes.

Derek sighed. He was bone tired. He hadn't slept in two days, had been fuelled on Gatorade only, had pushed himself to limit to try to find a clue. Laura's lingering smell had taunted him, leading him up chasing false trails, and it had all been completely fruitless. Well, the Beacon Hills Preserve is huge, sprawling across three counties and Derek was searching through it grid by grid. He knew, even with his supernatural sense, trying to find a clue about Laura's hereabouts (Derek refused to think about deadbody because, well because he couldn't think in that line without going raving mad) was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. But he had to try or just die trying.

So it was understandable he was running low on patience.

"Look, either you tell me what you deal is or I am going to go to the police and let them know..."

"No." The girl screeched, meeting his eyes. "No police. There is no need. But it is not fair. I must be miles away from your house. Why does it matter to you?"

"Why does it matter?" Derek's eyebrows climbed to his hairline incredulously and he pointed towards her bruised knuckles which were bleeding by now. She quickly put them behind her, and the gesture was so childish that Derek knew a tiny part of his heart should have thawed for her, _if_ it hadn't hardened over so in the last six years. He was too numb to spare any sympathy for a stranger right at this point. 

"This is not normal behaviour, you know that right?"

"Can we sit?" The girl mumbled, eyes averted again. "Let us sit. My foot is killing me."

She plopped down on the forest floor without waiting for his answer. Derek hesitated before lowering himself gingerly, squatting on the balls of his feet.

"I came here to draw." She waved her hand at the abandoned, blank paper clipped to a board lying nearby on fallen leaves. "It didn't go well."

"And so you started throwing punches at the trees?" Derek had internally started questioning the sanity of the girl.

"Dad stopped my kickboxing classes. He has banned me from entering the gym altogether and even threatened Ivan, the instructor with dire consequences if he let me in. Even for practice."

The girl's voice is dull, lifeless and she is absently unwrapping the blodied and soiled gauges from her knuckles, grimacing at her hands.

"I have to practice. I cannot afford not to."

Derek glared at the girl, who was still refusing to meet his eyes. They both knew it was more than that.

"What is your name?"

The girl looked at him at that and Derek searched her face to gauge her emotion. Her heartbeats had quietened down and they didn't stutter when she opened her mouth.

"Sasha." She said, holding Derek's gaze. "I am Sasha Stilinski."

The name sounded oddly familiar, but then Beacon Hills was a small town and though Talia Hale was no social butterfly (Derek didn't inherit his misanthropic tendencies from his father), but she knew a lot of people and was diplomatic enough to cultivate a good relationship even with people she didn't like (unlike Derek). He might have heard of Stilinkskis from his mother or his cousin Joyce.

"Well, Sasha. You need to stop doing whatever you have been doing and talk to somebody. And you need to skip school to visit the preserve. It is not very safe here."

The girl, Sasha, scoffed. 

"I have been coming here since I was thirteen. There is nothing dangerous out here if you know your way around."

"Listen," Derek gritted his teeth. This is going to be even more difficult that he imagined. "I was kind of playing nice up to now, but that is because I really don't want to scare you. I would just tell you one more time to stay away from the preserve."

"Or else?" Sasha raised an eyebrow at him challengingly.

"Look, you are a long way from home. You are injured. If anything like a wild animal attacks you, you cannot even run."

"I used to be perfectly fine up to now visiting that house." Sasha grumbled. "Until you showed up."

Derek's jaw clenched and he could only resist the urge to snarl at the girl on noticing how the girl's eyes widened as soon as the words had got out and how she had almost clapped a hand over her mouth in consternation.

"It is my house." He pointed out calmly. "I can come and go as I damn well please."

"I am sorry." Saha worried her lip with her teeth. "That was out of line. I didn't mean it. Of course it is your house. I have no business hanging out there. I will...I will stay out of the forest. I will just find somewhere else to hang out."

Derek let his eyes rove over the girl hunching on herself. She looked utterly defeated, sad, broken. And the look in her eyes - he was pretty familiar with it, being confronted with it every morning in the bathroom mirror. He took a careful stock of what he could see outwardly. Outwardly, the girl smelt and seemed healthy, smart, intelligent even and more polite than the teenagers usually are. She had perfect olive skin and shoulder length raven hair, with bangs over her dark eyes, making her seem even younger than her age, which Derek put somewhere near nineteen. She was of average height and a definitely athletic if somewhat curvy built, like she was into swimming or running, regularly (or kickboxing, his mind supplied). The sad aura around her notwithstanding she didn't look anything like someone who would be bullied at school or somebody who wouldn't be able to take care of herself if the need arose. In fact what little maneuver he had seen her doing even with a twisted ankle, she looked pretty good at defending herself. Her looks or her wardrobe choice (a brown Henley and dark jeans that clung to her curves) didn't hint at a social pariah, but she obviously was. Otherwise why would a girl like her be friendless and resort to practice kickboxing of all things or think that a sad, burnt out house haunted by terrible memories to be her only refuse.

"You can hang out at my house." Derek found himself blurting out before he could make himself stop and he mentally face-palmed.

This is why he usually stayed away from people. He didn't want to be sympathetic to other people's plight when he had his plate full. He didn't want to have to do with anybody else, period. But here he was, offering help to a possible psychopath because she was looking so miserable.

As if he hadn't learnt his lesson after Kate.

The girl's face lighted up from the inside. Derek hated her even more.

"Really?" She asked hesitatingly, eyes hopeful and terrified at the same time like she didn't believe if Derek was joking with her or not.

"Yes," Derek gritted his teeth again. "And don't mention it again. Also give me your phone number and you will stay away when I tell you to stay away. And you will not bug me if I am there."

"Never." The girl shook her head, looking solemn. 

"And you will stop punching trees." Derek couldn't help adding. God why was he so invested anyway? The girl could bruise her hands on the rough bark of a tree until her skin is rubbed raw and the bones at her knuckles got exposed for all he cared. He.didn't.care!

The girl looked away. "Maladaptive coping." She mumbled and Derek had to use his supernatural hearing to make out her words.

"Yeah? And if it was that then you definitely need to talk to your parents." 

Sasha's head jerked to him and her eyes bulged. Derek had a feeling she hadn't realised that she had said it out loud. Then her eyes narrowed, as the anger returned to her scent.

"I don't have parents."

"But you just said your father..."

"I am adopted."

"So talk to your foster parents." Derek sat down on the dirt. He could as well get it over with. "Wait a minute. Are they the ones who are abusing you?"

"No!" The denial was forceful and it was not a lie. "Not dad. Jesus, dad is..." Sasha rubbed her face with one hand. "Dad is...the best thing that has ever happened to me."

Derek's forehead didn't smoothen out even at the reassurances. A lot of time the victims don't even know if they are...

"Oh my God, please stop thinking along the line you are thinking!" Sasha nearly yelled at him. "My dad is...he is a good guy. The absolute best."

"Well, you are kind of a mess and that sort of raises the question what kind of a parent he is." Derek raised one eyebrow at her.

"A parent who is overworked because he has to raise two kids and pay off a mortgage with nobody else to help him out and breaking his back in the process?" Sasha glowered at him. "A parent who has already suffered too much and has a teenage kid with ADHD to look after and who doesn't need to be bothered by the silly problems of a foster child whom he took in out of the kindness of his heart because otherwise she would have ended up into the foster care, not an ideal place for a three-year old?"

Derek gulped. He didn't want to know about all these but suddenly Sasha's entire life was painted in front of his eyes, in vivid technicolour and it was impossible not to feel bad for the girl, at least a little bit.

The girl who was looking mortified now.

"And with that I just dumped my entire life story on you." She shook her head sadly. "You will never trust me if I say I usually don't do it. Try never, in fact."

Derek had a feeling she was telling the truth, even without listening to her heart.

Sasha was still shaking her head while she took out her phone and handed it over to Derek.

"Send a message to your phone." She jerked her chin towards it.

"Why would you need my number?" Derek frowned.

"Because dumbass," Derek's eyebrows climbed up again, "how else will I know if you are at your home or not? I will message you before coming over and if you don't want me just text me. If I don't get any text, I will assume you are not there and I will come over."

"Dumbass!" Derek looked at her, unimpressed. 

Sasha rolled her eyes, not the least bit intimated.

"Doofus? Stupid? Idiot? Whatever...I am running out of name-calling. Now help me stand up."

"And what gave you the impression that you can order me around now."

"Because we have a deal now. I am going to bring you food and you are going to let me visit your house whenever I wish."

"No, you can't,"

Sasha shrugged. "Well, it was worth trying. Now help me stand up, grumpy."

Derek stood and had half a mind to stalk off into the opposite direction but he couldn't deny he liked it that the girl's mood had evidently lightened. She didn't smell so sad or angry anymore. She was not happy by any stretch of imagination, but at least she was messing around, even if at his expense. He looked down at her and she reached up with both hands with an expectant expression. She was looking so trusting. She had no clue he can tear out her throat with one sweep of his claws and nobody will be any wiser. 

Derek startled. Why would he murder an innocent girl just because she was inconvenient and annoying. He had never thought of murdering anybody. Not even Kate Argent. All he wanted was to get away, from this town, from the smell of charred flesh that clung to his nostrils days afterwards, from his own guilt, from feeling helpless and alone, from the nightmares.

"Derek?" Sasha said softly, tilting her head to one side. Her voice was full of concern, for him. 

God, only if she knew what kind of a monster she was dealing with.

He took her hand, grabbing it near the elbow and hauled her to her feet. She limped to her electric blue bicycle that was resting against the tree.

"Wait," Derek picked up her backpack from the floor. "I will give you a lift. Let me bring over my car."

"But my cycle?"

"I will send it to you. Don't worry about it." Derek didn't know what made him do it. 

This girl was a complete stranger. She was nothing to him. But he knew of human injury enough that he was sure she had worsen it while cycling here and it would be very painful to cycle back. She might be a masochist and use pain for some sort of unhealthy coping mechanism but he wouldn't enable her if he could help it.

The girl smelt, kind of embarrassed. 

"You really don't need to do that." She said softly. "Thank you anyway."

"Wait here." Derek ordered ignoring her protests and he sprinted towards the road where his car was parked this time (while he was looking for a scent trail on foot)

When Derek drove back, he had half expected the girl to disappear, but there she was, leaning against a tree and chewing her nails. Sasha got inside the car wordlessly still smelling of embarrassment. They drove quietly and to Derek's astonishment the silence was not awkward. He was gradually realising Sasha was not very talkative normally and like every teenager he met in his life she didn't feel the need to fill the silence with a mindless chatter.

"Wait a minute." Sasha climbed out of the vehicle in front of her house and instructed quietly.

"Why?" Derek asked suspiciously.

"Just...trust me." She smiled at him and disappeared inside the house.

Derek suppressed the urge to fidget, but soon he was sitting upright as there was a police cruiser approaching the house from the opposite side. It halted in front of the house too and Derek cursed on seeing the person getting out of it. It was Deputy Stilinski, sheriff Stilinski now, evidently, and suddenly Derek remembered why Sasha's last name sounded familiar. 

She was the Goddamn sheriff's daughter and here he was sitting in a car in front of his house.

The sheriff paused at the door and looked back at his car and Derek could feel his piercing gaze even though the windshied.

Shit!

The door of the house opened before the sheriff could unlock it and of course it was Sasha, clutching a casserole and a brown paper bag with both hands.

"What?" The sheriff raised his eyebrows at his daughter, who just greeted him with a cheerful "hi dad" and hobbled down the stairs.

Derek closed his eyes. He was going to get arrested and he wouldn't have any explanation to offer what he had been doing hanging outside the sheriff's house,

He opened his eyes at the knock on the passenger side window. He rolled it down and stared at the crazy girl grinning down at him.

"Here, I have heated them up for you." she thrust the casserole and the brown paper bag through the window. Derek grabbed them and placed on the seat. The smell of chicken smothered with cheese and of apples and cinnamon hit his flared nostrils.

"Sasha, are we giving away leftover to strangers nowadays?"

Fuck! The sheriff was standing behind his daughter, eyes fixed on Derek sitting in the driver's seat.

"Be nice dad." Sasha directed her smile at her dad. "He gave me a lift. He is going to bring back my bicycle from the forest too."

"You went into the preserve? With a sprained ankle?" The sheriff sounded as incredulous as Derek felt when he had discovered the girl in it.

Sasha only rolled her eyes. "I told you dad, I had to finish my project."

"And you just found him, ready to give you a lift? Inside the preserve?" The sheriff looked at Derek again, assessing him.

"Dad, this is Derek Hale." Sasha sounded exasperated. "His house is _in_ the preserve."

"By his house you mean..." the sheriff trailed off, suddenly his scent turned sour, with sorrow. 

Derek clenched his jaw. He knew what he remembered. After all he was one of the first deputies to arrive at the scene as he later heard and he was the one who had wrapped a blanket around a shaking Derek and Laura at the sheriff's station.

The sheriff's gaze softened instantly.

"Derek, I didn't know you were back in town son."

"Good morning dep-sheriff."

"Are you planning to stay? The house is not safe for staying, is it?"

"No...ah..." Derek looked at Sasha, a bit at a loss.

"Dad, Derek is here for work. Some legal issues regarding his property." Sasha looked at Derek and widened her eyes, begging him silently to go with it. "He will return to New York soon and he doesn't really have a lot of time to chitchat."

"Oh, in that case you should thank him for giving you a lift." 

"Hence the chicken parmesan from the last night and apple hand pies." Sasha turned to Derek again, smiling.

"You didn't need to." Derek suddenly realised to his horror that he was probably blushing, from the evident gratefulness the sheriff was exuding and the tenderness Sasha's voice held. 

"I know, but I still did."

"We insist." The sheriff too smiled at him and Derek felt he was being extrememly ill-mannered for not climbing out of the car to...do something normal, like shaking hands, but it was too late now.

"Goodbye Derek, see you later." Sasha waved her hand and dragged her father away from the Camaro.

Derek didn't spare a backward glace as he peeled off the neighbourhood, concentrating hard on keeping within the speed limit.

Sheriff's daughter. Christ! And he was indicating he was a child-abuser. But if not him, who was brave enough to mess with the sheriff's kid, especially one who was secretly a firecracker as Sasha no doubt was, underneath the rage and the hurt and the emotional damage.

Derek shook his head at himself. What had he gotten himself into?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some comments will be really appreciated at this stage :)


	4. Chapter 4

It was late afternoon when Derek found Laura’s body, hidden from the view inside a shallow ravine and he found the wolfsbane bushes further up on a higher ground. The purple flowers bloomed in all its glory in a quiet patch deep inside the preserve and even though the light was waning, Derek could see them easily, using his wolf vision. He made a wreath of the young branches with dark green leaves  and he tucked in the flowers carefully, making the wreath look pretty, remembering how he had to make eleven of them six years ago.

He dug the loose earth behind his house and placed Laura or what was left of her into it. He could not make himself close her eyes for that would make it real.

That Laura was dead and she was never coming back.

And Derek placed the wreath into the grave and attached a rope, also decorated with wolfsbane flowers to it. He buried the rope just under the earth in an expanding spiral around the grave and finally he sat on the edge of the grave and looked down at the upper half of the dead body of a black wolf.

Laura would be home forever. And what would Derek do?

He wrapped his arms around his body and rocked back and forth. His eyes were completely dry. He wondered if it was because he still didn’t quite believe it. There had been no tears even when he couldn’t hold back the howl that tore through his throat when he finally found the sad remnant of her body. He knew there were police in the forest and there were dogs searching for the missing half of the deadbody of a girl, but he couldn’t hold it back. But that was it. There were no tears, no mourning, nothing at all except for this dull numbness.

He was numb. Even as he stared down at the wolf who used to be his sister and his alpha, he felt nothing. He rocked to and fro and there was the forest whispering around him, mourning the death of the last Hale who counted. Derek was an empty husk of a man, exactly like his burnt out home. He was not even sure he was alive. How would he know he hadn’t already joined the land of dead? He hadn’t eaten anything since last afternoon and he didn’t even feel it. He hadn’t slept for over forty eight hours lest the nightmares haunting him came true (and it did!). He must be turning into a ghost if he was already not one of them, haunting his family’s land.

“Derek?”

The timid voice should have made him do something, either lash out at the intruder in warning or demand to know how the hell the person dared to disturb the peace. It was the hour of the dead and no living thing should have come traipsing into this ground.

But he did neither, not even when the person tiptoed up to him and fell down on their knees beside him.

“I texted you and I had been calling you since I heard the wolf howling in the forest.”

Derek didn’t reply, didn’t even acknowledge the girl.

“Oh my God, what is that? Is that the wolf?”

Derek tried to ignore it. Maybe it was another apparition. It was not real. _He_ was not real. He was just dead, dead, dead, dead, deaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddeaddead…..

“Derek…please say something.” The new voice gulped. “You are scaring me.”

Why wouldn’t the stupid voice just leave him alone? It just adjusted its position and was now crouching in front of him.

“Derek?”

There were hands on his face, making him look up and he snapped, finally. Why wouldn’t they let him be even when he was dead?

He snarled, fangs and flashing eyes and all, at the terrified face of Sasha Stilinski who released him with a startled cry and scooted back immediately. Derek drew his knees to his chest and buried his face into his hands.

“Go away.” He mumbled. “Come back in the morning to get me. You can kill me then. Now just go away.”

He didn’t know how long he stayed like that until there were fingers in his hair, just a tentative brush.

“There are no wolves in California.” The voice was soft and gentle. “That howl…was that you?”

Derek curled more into himself for the next blow to come.

“And that wolf…is that…God, Derek, they found a girl’s body last evening. Only half of it. And the wolf is….Jesus Christ….Derek, is that Laura?”

No. He didn’t want to hear it out loud. He covered his ears and cowered from the knowledge. Laura could not be dead. She could not be only a body in the police morgue or in a hastily dug out, crude grave. She was a living, breathing whirlwind who smacked Derek upside the head when he surreptitiously picked out the broccoli from his lunch and fed them to their cat, she was the one who held Derek back from smashing the face of their landlord who said something nasty about Laura’s job as a personal trainer, she was the one who grabbed him by the collar and hauled him into her car when he needed to get his shit together and go back to the college after breaking the door of the principal’s office and being suspended because of it.

She was Laura.

Sister. Alpha. Substitute mother.

She was not a dead body.

Derek was not sure when exactly he had wrapped himself around a small, warm body, not unlike Laura’s rather than his own cold one and when exactly was there a face hooked over his shoulder saying soothing words into his ears.

“I am so sorry Derek…God I am so sorry…I don’t understand why…but I am sorry…why would somebody do it? Why would somebody….God, it is just so messed up!...”

He realized the person is crying and he liked the way she smelt. All sunshine and pine cones and green apples now mixed with salt tears and something sharp underneath, like caramel  and he let himself be rocked for he didn’t have an anchor. He felt he was just drifting into the outer space and there was nothing to hold him back. He just existed in this strange sort of void.

Derek had turned into stone. Nothing ever mattered anymore.

“What happened to your hands?” The girl suddenly gasped, grabbing his hands this time and Derek looked beyond her, into the darkness which was going to be his friend from now on because nobody was going to rush into his room to turn on the light when he had a nightmare.

He was alone.

There was a hiccup from somewhere inside him and something was burning in his throat. Still there were no tears.

“Derek, did you dig the grave with your hands? Your nails are all broken and what are these red welts? How did you get them?”

Derek was annoyed at the constant chatter. He thought about snarling at the girl again, sending her away, but he simply didn’t have the energy for that.

Then the girl was tugging him to his feet.

“Come on, I will finish filling up the grave. Come on…I need to take a look at your…Derek, please just let me…”

Derek straightened up, moving away from the girl and started shoving the mound of earth into the makeshift grave, filling it up. He could feel the girl hovering and chattering behind him, but he couldn’t care less about her. She knew about them now and soon she was going to lead the hunters to him.

He just wished he could find the alpha before they finished him for that was something Laura would have wanted. To take care of the unfinished business, of a rogue alpha in the Hale territory killing innocent people. Derek needed to stop him, because Laura would have wanted him to.

He filled up the grave methodically, patting down the loose soil, planting the wolfsbane in the middle of it, like a warning.

The ritual was complete. Derek swayed where he stood, suddenly uncertain. Was there something else he needed to do? Sasha, who had fallen quiet by now, took him by the hand and tugged him towards the house and Derek let her. She might have the hunters waiting for him there. But again, Derek didn’t have the energy to fight her or argue with her.

Sasha kicked open the front door and led him inside, deep into the house where there was a mattress and the camping supplies. He had found all these upstairs and they still smelt of Laura.

Derek collapsed into the mattress and curled into a foetal ball.

“No…Derek,” Sasha grabbed his forearm and tried to make him sit. “You need to take this shirt off. It is bloody and dirty and your hands, I need to…”

Derek stubbornly closed his eyes, tuning her out completely. Sasha let out a sigh and stalked away. Derek heard her puttering about somewhere inside the house and then she went out briefly and came back again.

Derek didn’t know why she was still hanging on.

“Here,” she threw down a t-shirt and it belonged to him. She had evidently found his duffel bag and had gone through it. Derek growled at her, showing his fangs, as the shirt hit him on the face, but she didn’t look very fazed by that.

“Change your shirt man. It has blood on it.” She insisted.

Derek knew it has blood on it. He could smell the blood and the wolfsbane and the dirt and the combined stench had started to sting his eyes.

Sasha dropped down beside the mattress and poked him in the side.

God, did the girl have no sense of self-preservation at all?

“Just change your shirt and let me look at your hands. I am not going to bother you anymore. I promise.”

Derek sat up and ripped his shirt off him just to end the constant chatter. He tossed it away, without bothering to see where it landed and put on the fresh one Sasha had brought for him. It was a plain, black t-shirt, his favourite, a Christmas gift from Laura.

Derek wondered again when it was going to hit him and he was waiting for it, dreading it. He was bracing himself for the impact, but it never came. There was no earth-shattering knowledge hitting him that his alpha was dead, leaving him all alone in this world except for his catatonic uncle who was half dead anyway. There was no dramatic change in the rhythm of life – and the world carried on like it always had – and Derek was stagnant at one moment, when his eyes fell on the still, lifeless body of his sister and everything else became secondary.

Derek wanted to snatch his hand away from the girl’s grip who was wiping the dirt and the blood away with a moist cloth and grimacing while at it. He wanted to tell her he didn’t need the ointment she was applying with gentle touches, wincing on his behalf, like she was the one feeling the pain and not Derek. He almost opened his mouth and said she didn’t need to bother and that he would heal anyway, if not now, probably because of the wolfsbane and that the broken nails would be mended and the red welts looking like cruel whiplashes would disappear and that the pain didn't matter. That he was accustomed to it anyway. But he didn’t say anything. He let her take care of his hands for it looked like she needed it more than him. Because she was crying the tears he should have cried, she was doing the mourning he should have done, she was saying all the right things, that her sister didn’t deserve this and that the person who did this will suffer for it and that it was not right and that God should not be so cruel to a single person.

She didn’t go even after she had tended his wounded hands and Derek had curled onto the mattress again with his back towards her. She sat by his feet and leaned against a wall, not touching, not talking, not doing anything else in fact, other than quietly breathing – in out, in out, in out – and Derek unconsciously matched his breathing with hers until his erratic pulses rate had calmed down.

He was still alive, he realized, to his utter disappointment and even when he drifted into an uneasy sleep, he was still counting the girl’s heartbeat in his head. 


	5. Chapter 5

Derek woke up to the knowledge of the world being colder and even more hostile than ever.

He woke up to the feeling of being utterly alone and the loneliness broke against him like waves breaking against a rock and he felt as cold as that rock, as much heartless, for there were still no sign of tears or emotions or any outward sign of grief.

His numbness might be the reason it took him some time to realise something was tickling the bare soles of his feet. He remembered vividly he had the boots on, at least when he had started to dig the ground to lay Laura down. He sat bolt upright, ready to plunge his claws into whatever had dared to disturb his sleep inside his own den.

Den, that was how it was now, for it was less than a house and more than a cave.

Sasha Stilinski was curled up at his feet, her soft brown hair brushing against the bare soles of his feet. Derek didn’t remember pulling off his boots or his jacket. He didn’t remember much of the night before. He half-believed he had hallucinated her though why would he hallucinate her of all people was a big question.

Well, the sleeping figure curling into itself on the pitilessly hard, cold floor was definitely not a hallucination.

Derek scooted back from her like the sight burned him and stared at her sleeping form.

Uncertain.

He should leave this place. She had known or at least guessed at what he was and she might call the hunters, lead them to him, or tell his father about the monster haunting the old Hale house into the preserve.

His self-preservation instinct was screaming at him to leave. Yes, he needed to avenge Laura, but even more than that Laura would have wanted him to stay alive.

A brittle laugh escaped his mouth at that.

Alive!

It was just a word.

To describe a state of being he was not familiar with anymore.

The girl stirred. She looked small and helpless. Even in her sleep there was a frown between her eyebrows.

Derek reached out and poked her in the shoulder gingerly. He was many things, but cruel was not it. He couldn’t leave a defenceless girl in the middle of the forest and just run.

What would Laura think?!?!

Wait, Laura would never think anything, for she was fucking dead.

The girl stirred again, this time with more purpose and she groaned, seemingly coming out of her sleep-coma.

Then she too sat bolt upright, almost mirroring Derek’s pose.

They stared into each other’s eyes for a few moments, each warily regarding each other and waiting for the other to start talking.

The girl broke the eye-contact first and cleared her throat.

“I-I won’t tell anybody.” She said, her voice hoarse from catching cold because of sleeping on the floor.

“Who will believe you anyway?” Derek’s voice was cold and hard. The world was mean to him and he didn’t feel the need to be kinder towards its inhabitant.

Sasha looked up and met his eyes at his tone. She didn’t seem hurt or angry, only surprised.

Well, did she think she had won over him somehow because he had allowed her to hold him and stay by him the whole night? Well, she had grossly miscalculated.

“Ok.” She said evenly. “I will...go then.”

Derek remained silent.

“Don’t bite my head off like you almost did last night, but let me please ask you again...” she peered at him anxiously from under her lashes, “are you sure you don’t want to get the police involved? I guess it was not an ordinary death. Or was it an animal attack? If so, it is just so unfortunate. But don’t you think you should go to the police and know for certain?”

Derek had tuned out half of the things she had been saying last night. He resumed the same technique this time also. He rose fluidly from the floor, found his jacket and put it on. Without it, he felt kind of exposed, even in Californian summer. He didn’t sweat anyway and so it was not that uncomfortable. He liked the way it smelt – warm leather and musk, of New York and Laura, family and pack. It was as close to a safe cocoon as he would get and at this point he was desperate for one.

Sasha took the hint and moved towards the door or the gaping hole which was in place of a door.

“I guess, I will see you around.” She asked uncertainly, without looking back.

“Stay away from this place.” Derek pretty much growled. “This is not a safe place to hang out.”

Sasha turned towards him this time and placed her hands on her hips.

“ _You_ live here don’t you?”

“That is different.”

“How so?”

Derek threw up his hands in air in exasperation.

“Do I need to spell it for you?” He spat. “I am a werewolf. I can withstand a lot of things which you can’t, being a human and all. And whatever killed Laura is still around.”

His eyes bugged immediately, but he schooled his features. Talking about over-sharing! But even more baffling was Sasha’s reaction which was not shocked, but kind of stubborn and mulish. Derek was intimately familiar with the look. He had seen it countless times in the mirror.

“You don’t care about whether I live or die.” The sudden change in Sasha’s tone made him narrow his eyes at her. “So I will do exactly as I please and it is none of your business.”

“It is my business if a human girl gets herself killed in my territory.” Derek snarled at her. “Though it would be because of her monumental stupidity, but people will blame me. _I_ will blame me.”

“I managed not to get killed last night or any of those days I was into the preserve all by myself!” Sasha retorted.

“Yeah, about that.” Derek stalked forward until Sasha backed against the wall and they were standing almost nose to nose. “What the hell were you doing at that hour so deep into the preserve?”

Sasha seemed stunned at the sudden proximity. Then she tried to shove Derek back with a considerable force, though not enough as to move him.

“I was worried about you, you asshole.” She yelled at him, suddenly furious. “I heard this howl and I thought about you living all by yourself into this ruins with actual holes on the wall. I had to come and see if you were OK.”

“Why?” Derek asked, genuinely taken aback.

“Because it is common human decency?” She said, though she made it like a question. “You took care of me even though I was a stranger and a nuisance.”

 Derek scowled at her.

“I don’t need your pity.” He pointed a finger towards her. “Stay away from this place.”

Sasha raised her chin. “You know what? I won’t. And you better deal with it.”

She turned and walked out of the front door.

Derek just stood in the middle of the room and counted down ten to one to suppress the urge to grab the kid and shake her until her teeth chattered.

Why the hell the stupid girl couldn’t just leave him alone and why the hell wouldn’t she take the message that it is dangerous to be associated with him or to come traipsing into the preserve whenever she wished. What if she had an accident? What if the rogue alpha attacked her? What if she too ended up dead.

Derek shook his head.

Not.his.responsibility.

Suddenly he heard voices, and canted his head for a better angle.

Yep, definitely human voices – hunters may be, but they would not be so loud would they? Well, may be they were cocky, thinking they could take down a lone omega anyday...

Omega!

Dear God, he had never thought he would end up being an omega. His childhood horror stories were full of snarling, out of control omegas, thrown out of their packs and nothing left to anchor them to their human side, turning feral. He would not be such an omega. His mother’s name was Talia Hale who was the most powerful born werewolf on this side of the world. People revered his mom – his family had a legacy and he was the only one left to carry the torch and to hell with the thought he would be taken down like a rabid dog by a bunch of hunters or would run wild, unable to control his wolf.

He squared his shoulders and walked out of his house, stalking towards the source of the snippets of conversation.

“I swear I dropped it here...my inhaler....it was eighty bucks...”

Derek smelt the air and picked up the location of the said inhaler easily, for it was the only chemical smell amidst the petrichor and bird-poop and mosses – the pure and unadulterated smell of nature.

“Dude, you cannot possibly know it...”

“...help looking at the very least...”

The smell hit Derek as soon as the direction of wind changed.

Werewolf. Recently turned. Omega.

Derek pocketed the inhaler and advanced towards the two kids bumbling about in a clearing with a heavy sigh.


	6. Chapter 6

Stiles’ smell hit Derek as soon as he slid into the driver’s seat of the cruiser. He smelt similar to Sasha – sunshine and pine cones, but his was a more happy one, full of life and joy and Derek’s nostrils flared in spite of himself, drinking in the warm scent.

“Just so you know...I am not afraid of you.”

Derek glared at the kid, lying brazenly at his face. The warm brown eyes widened a fraction when Derek  looked up and with a sick satisfaction he noticed  how the smell of fear sharpened and the way he gulped. Derek’s eyes followed the bob of his Adam’s apple.

The kid was saying something, but Derek was not really listening. He was breathing in the frankly addictive smell coming out of the teen.

God, he was just a teen!

Derek leaned in, wanting to shut him up by a cold threat. Instead what came out of his mouth was words of caution. Though his tone was gruff, he tried his best to warn the kid about the clusterfuck that was about to hit his life pretty soon.

The kid was licking his lips. Lips, which were pink and pretty and...and there was suddenly another layer of scent masking the fear.

Lust!

Derek dragged his eyes up from his lips to the wide whiskey eyes. What the hell!

Before he could do something stupid, like growl at the teen to stop eye-fucking him, the kid was hauled out of the car by his father – sheriff Stilinski.

So this was Sasha’s brother, just as he had guessed when he had met him the first time in the woods.

That was just...fucking great!

Derek closed his eyes and reined in his frustration. He needed to go look for the alpha who had killed his sister or the wolf who had killed Laura and had stolen the alpha spark from her. He didn’t have time to get embroiled into a murder investigation. He stayed put only because of a quietly uttered words into his ears.

“Don’t resist the arrest son and don’t even think about doing something stupid.” The sheriff had whispered against his ears as he had snapped on the handcuff on his wrists. “I am sure it is a misunderstanding, but let us do our job.”

Then he had patted him on the shoulder lightly and guided him out of his house.

Like a criminal.

And the boys were there, Stiles and Scott. The young werewolf was standing near the tree-line, his gaze shifting guiltily when Derek had looked at his direction. But Stiles was bolder, something Derek hadn’t expected at all.

He thought about the human boy almost his entire ride to the police station. What else would he rather concentrate on? The world without Laura? The means to commit suicide once he was done here in Beacon Hills? The people he would leave behind when he died? The people he had let down in his 22-year old existence?

So he thought about Stiles and marvelled at his temerity. About how wonderful he smelt. Derek had felt a bit out of his elements here in the sleepy town for his senses were all on hyper-focus, especially here in the woods. After New York it was a sensory overload for him. Over there people almost always smelt of something else – carrying the residual scent of their fellow humans, workplaces, vehicle and other more unpleasant and unnatural smells.

In Beacon Hills it was different, but he didn’t expect it to jolt him so much, especially when he had nobody who smelt like home. Nothing at all to bury his nose into and feel that he too belonged.

Whoever he belonged to, was gone!

...

Derek was making a mess of everything. He botched up every time he thought he had got the alpha cornered. He went to visit uncle Peter in the hospital dutifully, but he was still catatonic and no help could be expected from that side.

Derek was desperate the day he was following the shadow of the alpha. It was now or never. The fact he was too bent upon catching the alpha was the reason he didn’t notice what or rather whom the alpha was chasing.

He got himself shot by Kate fucking Argent.

...

Sasha hadn’t called him three days running or visited his home. Either she was giving him space or he had finally managed to scare her off. Now that her brother’s best friend had turned out to be a werewolf she wasn’t likely to turn around and sic the hunters on him, but he was still wary.

A nagging voice at the back of his mind kept on telling him if she wanted to hurt him or worse she could have done it for she had him when he was at his most vulnerable and all she did was keep him company, so that he was not alone.

A lump rose in Derek’s throat at that.

He was so very alone. And Scott was so hostile to him. Derek didn’t understand it. He was not the one who bit him. It was not the worst thing to happen to a kid with asthma, because it cured his illness and made him an overnight lacrosse star (though Derek didn’t approve of him playing), but the kid seemed determined to hate him.

Well, Scott was good and innocent. Probably he instinctively knew what Derek was. The reason he really couldn’t answer the sheriff’s question truthfully when he asked if he was the murderer.

For he _was_!

And somebody like Scott would never be his friend.

...

“So, this is your den.” Stiles sauntered inside the house like he belonged there.

Derek was onto him in an instant, shoving him against the very door he had dared walk in.

“I...I mean no harm.”

Stiles wheezed as Derek’s fingers tightened around his throat.

“Please...” Stiles choked out. Derek flashed his eyes and loosened his fingers one at a time.  

It looked like it was going to bruise. Good! That would remind him not to enter into a wolf’s den without his permission.

“Jesus,” Stiles messaged his throat and looked daggers at Derek who crossed his arms and scowled back.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“So it is perfectly ok for you to climb into Scott’s bedroom any time you want?” Stiles arched an eyebrow, even though his heart was still beating in a frantic rhythm. “You are quite a hypocrite you know that, right?”

“What I do with Scott is not your business.”

“Because he is your wolf brother?” Stiles scoffed and moved about, inspecting his surroundings.

“He is a werewolf. I am a werewolf. We need each other in a way you wouldn’t understand.”

“Scott doesn’t need you.” Stiles turned towards him sharply. His pleasant smell which was teasing Derek’s senses as soon as the boy had crossed the treeline in front of his house became sharp in a sudden burst of anger and possessiveness.

“Well, good luck figuring out how to be a werewolf and not murdering his friends on the full moon then.” Derek said stonily.

“If you help him, you will do it for a price.” Stiles raised his chin challengingly. His heartbeat is finally under control, but it was still faster than normal. “I wouldn’t let you do that to him.”

Derek just raised an eyebrow at him.

“Well, I am his best friend.” Stiles burst out. “You are not his friend. You always have an ulterior motive.”

“Yes, you are right.” Derek sighed. “I have a motive.”

Stiles stared at him incredulously.

“And you are willing to share that with me?”

Derek shrugged. “You are too involved with it anyway, whether I wanted it or not.”

Stiles did a double take on the second part of the sentence for Derek knew he sounded utterly resigned by then.

“Well, what is it?” Stiles asked. “What do you want from him?”

Stiles had stepped closer to him. Either he was too brave for his own good or he had the self-preservation instinct of a lemming.

Derek sighed again.

“I don’t want anything _from_ him.”

I just want this to be over. I want the alpha dead and gone. I want to leave this fucking town a long time ago. I want my sister back. I want my mom...

Derek squeezed his eyes shut and when he opened them, Stiles’ was giving him a strange look and his scent had changed into something softer, like sympathy.

Derek jerked and glared at the kid, which had him back away a couple of steps.

“I want him to find his alpha and I want his help to kill him.” Then he bulldozed over whatever Stiles had started to say. “And yes, it is more important than your homework or his girlfriend or his fun-time at school.”

Stiles nodded like he understood. “That is...yeah, I can’t even fault you for that.”

Derek stared at him, somewhat flabbergasted. It was completely different from Scott’s reaction.

“Don’t need to give me that look.” Stiles said indignantly. “I can be thoughtful at times. I mean, yeah there is a rogue werewolf on the loose and it is going to kill a lot of people and Scott and I would help as much as we can.”

Derek stared some more, waiting for a catch.

“But you promise to leave us alone if we do that?”

“Yes.” Derek gritted his teeth. He wanted to say that no he wouldn’t leave them alone. That wolves lived and thrived in a pack. That Scott needed a pack and whereas it seemed he already had a pack with Stiles, Derek was a bit jealous of them. Derek wanted in. He didn’t _want_ to leave them alone.

But Scott didn’t want Derek without even knowing how he caused his own family’s death.

Stiles was looking at him strangely again and this time it was not only his scent, but his entire face had gone softer.

“Derek,” he started hesitatingly, “are you...do you want Scott because...” he trailed off.

“Go home Stiles.” He said tiredly. “I will try to leave Scott alone.”

Stiles still lingered for a few moments more. Derek was not even sure why he came. If it was just a morbid curiosity about his burnt out house. It might have been a distinct possibility. Stiles was the kind of kid who would be morbidly curious about a haunted mansion where eleven souls burnt to their death.

Derek should be feeling angry with him, only if he could dredge up enough energy. As it was, he just felt enough emotion to channel his rage into a single direction – the alpha who murdered his sister – and he didn’t have any to spare.

Not for Stiles. Not for Scott for making him a fugitive. Not even for Chris Argent who had smashed his goddamn car window the other day.

He was so lost and just so broken.

Derek waited for the tears to come, after Stiles was long gone. He expected the outburst any day now. It had been five days since Laura and he was still numb. He was yet to shed a single drop of tear.

He dropped on the floor and started doing push-ups. The more his muscles ached the more he wanted to punish himself. For his shitty decisions. For Paige and for Kate. For letting Laura come to Beacon Hills. For not being friendlier with Scott. For a lot of things he couldn’t undo now.

He counted up to seventy three before he lost the thread.

He ached all over and he couldn’t feel the hollow in the place of his heart. It was then that he heard the leaves crunching under heavy boots outside his home.

Finally, the hunters were here...


	7. Chapter 7

“This one grew up in all the right places...mmm...I don’t know whether to kill it or lick it!”

Kate circled him, like a predator on the prowl and all he could do was writhe helplessly on the floor. He crawled across the floor to heft himself up by the leg of a charred piece of furniture and then he tried to lunge at her.

She was faster of course and she was taking such a delight in making a mess of him again.

He was so damn pathetic!

Derek had a good mind never to get up from the cold floor for what was the point even. He could only make sure of one thing that no matter how much it hurt he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of hearing him scream. He wouldn’t make a sound, no matter what she did.

And then she had to tease her about Laura, tell her triumphantly how it was not the hunter, but someone of his own kind to kill her. Derek already knew it, but he couldn’t help snarking back.

The next thing he knew the familiar glint was back in Kate’s eyes – the glint that he now recognised as malicious and cruel while in his teens he foolishly thought it made her ravishing, wild, untameable – and God how wrong he was!

Kate crawled towards him, with what should have been a seductive sway of her hips, but right now to Derek it was nauseating and he felt like throwing up as Kate pressed her face on the side of his sweating temple and whispered into his ears.

Derek shuddered and resisted the urge to close his eyes, refusing to give her the satisfaction to know how she affected him. He tried to make a sound, but nothing came out. He was like an insect trapped by a sundews. There was nowhere for him to go. Nowhere to run. If he couldn’t live in peace in his charred ruins of a home where he daily inhaled the ashes of the burnt flesh of his own family and if she was still not satisfied, he didn’t know what would satisfy her. There was nothing left to burn in his world. His heart, his emotions, his innocence, his youth...nothing...absolutely nothing else escaped unharmed from the deadly spell she had cast on him and still she had to come back for more. Derek was just about to let her have it. Let her run him through her dagger or riddle him with bullets and he would just sit back and let her finish him off.

“Let him go.”

Derek startled for he didn’t hear when she had come up, but then he was busy trying to swallow down his whimpers.

Kate stood ramrod straight, her cattle prod ready in her hand.

“Who the hell are you?” She asked, curiuos.

Sasha gulped.

“First let Derek go or I am going to blow this guy’s brain off.” She accompanied it with a nudge to the skull of one of the hunters kneeling on the floor who was trying to catch Kate’s eyes. Derek sniffed the air imperceptibly. The guy definitely had a couple of broken ribs. Derek remembered the poor tree-trunk Sasha was practising her moves on.

Her hands which were holding the revolver were shaking though.

“Well, well, well...” Kate smirked at her. “Look what we have here! Derek has a little friend now, has he?”

Sasha narrowed her eyes at Kate who took a cautious step towards her.

“Why don’t you lay down the weapon sweetie? Nice and slow. You definitely don’t know how to use –”

Sasha squeezed the trigger and though the bullet went far above Kate’s head, it stunned her enough to stop her in her track.

“Yeah? Any more assumption?” In spite of the bravado, her heart was going wild and a light tremor had started to run through her body and Derek didn’t know if Kate could sense it too.

“Your other friend is lying unconscious outside, so don’t even pretend...”

Derek had lunged the exact moment Kate had thrown the dagger at Sasha and while both of them landed on the floor in a tangle of limbs, the dagger went right past Sasha's head and lodged itself into the wall. The very next moment Derek flew in the air and hit the wall and he just lay on the floor in a shivering heap for he was sure Kate had amped up the cattle prod to the maximum.

“Derek...” Sasha screamed and started rushing to him completely forgetting the hunter on the knees.

The man of course got up immediately and tackled her from behind, locking his arms around her middle. Sasha elbowed him fiercely in the stomach but the man had her revolvered hand twisted behind her. Sasha tried to rear back, aiming for the guy’s nose, but she caught him in the right eye instead.

“You crazy bitch...” the man twisted her hand more, forcing _her_ on the knees this time, until she cried out in pain.

“No...” Derek tried to sit up and to form words. He tried to say to spare her for she was human and had nothing to do with this, but his tongue was heavy in his mouth and his teeth were chattering uncontrollably still as the aftershocks ran through his body.

“Let her be.” Kate commanded. “I think I have a good use for her.”

The other hunter released Sasha after taking away the revolver of course and shoving her onto the floor. She immediately started crab-walking towards Derek.

“Don’t!” Derek lifted his head with an inhuman effort and barked at her. Sasha froze a couple of feet away from him, still on her hands and knees.

Kate sauntered forward again, regaining her composure quickly.

“I smell a story here.” She grabbed a fistful of Derek’s hair and made him look up. “Was it as interesting as ours, Derek? Or is this something else? Young and innocent human girl ensnared by a beast? Will she train that revolver to your head next, if she knew who you really are?”

Derek smelt Sasha’s confusion and terror and panic and he was about to lose his mind in worry for her. He hoped Kate was not so gone that she would kill a human girl.

Probably.

“She knows who the real beast is.” Derek gritted out, staring right into Kate’s eyes, forcing the words out even though each movement hurt like hell.

Kate raised one eyebrow. She didn’t look amused. Good! Derek was not looking for amusing her anyway. She gave his hair a sharp tug, forcing him to bare his throat. Derek’s entire existence screamed against it. He didn’t want to be in this vulnerable position. Especially near Kate. He didn’t want to be at her mercy. But he was an omega and was running at one fourth of his normal strength and the electric bolts from the cattle prod had already sapped his strength.

“Don’t be stupid Derek.” Kate smiled at him, saccharine sweet. “There is only one beast in this story, since the other bitch is dead. Oh and I keep forgetting about the another half dead cad in the hospital.”

Derek spat right into her face for he couldn’t reach out and slash across her smug face, tearing her face asunder. He had never given a serious thought to murder anybody until now.

Sasha made a frightened sound at the back of her throat and shrank back.

Kate’s expression was thunderous. She straightened up, wiping her face with the back of her left hand.

“Get up.” She ordered.

Derek made it at the fourth attempt and the moment he did it Kate stabbed the prodder into his already tender ribs. Derek fell back on his knees, mouth parted in silent screams. Then she jabbed it over his kidney.

Derek was living in a world that was made of pain and nothing else existed. He tuned out everything except for the sound of his harsh breathing which were coming faster and faster. But Kate was relentless. She kicked him, made him roll to his side and jabbed him again and this time Derek knew he was screaming his lungs out, but he couldn’t even hear his own screams over the ringing in his ears.

“No...please, don’t...” Sasha’s yell brought him back to consciousness and Derek tried to fight with the fog surrounding his vision.

She was never meant to get caught up with this mess. This was his fault that he couldn’t make her stay away.

“Nonono...”

Something warm enveloped his body which was curled into a tight ball. A familiar smell, cutting through the charred, healing flesh of his own. Something soft and silky brushing over his ear...

“Move.”

“No...please.”

“Move or I am going to show you what we do to the human that sides with the beast.”

Move you little fool! Derek begged wordlessly. Move...run...never come back...

Sasha hugged him tighter.

“No.”

Derek didn’t know how he sensed it because he was on the floor with his face turned away, but he gathered the last ounce of his strength to fight for the precious control over his limbs.

Therefore when the prod came down he rolled onto his side, taking Sasha who along with him but not before the very tip of the rod brushed her upper arm.

Her scream reverberated through the room but Derek, in an instant, had reversed their position and had pinned her to the ground, not letting her thrash. His veins immediately turned black, unconsciously stealing away pain from her. He gritted his teeth against it.

“Well, you are still such a killjoy Derek.” Kate sighed. “I just wanted to have some fun with her.”

“You will have a lot of fun.” Derek said through clenched teeth. “Especially when her father, the sheriff of Beacon Hills comes looking for you.”

Derek might be mistaken, but Kate seemed a bit wrong-footed for a fraction of a second.

“You are lying.” She narrowed her eyes at her.

Derek didn’t deign to answer her. He concentrated on Sasha who had gone limp in his arms. He didn’t need to feel her pulse to know it had dropped drastically.

“I am taking her to the hospital and you pray that she lives.” He snarled at Kate. His strength is coming back at every passing second and Derek didn’t know how it was possible. But he didn’t pause to question it. He rose, gathering the unconscious girl in his arms. “If not, I will be the least of your problems.”

“Oh, but she got hurt because of you Derek.” Kate fake-pouted at him. “She got between me and you and she should have known better.”

“You are sick.” Derek turned his back on her and got out of the house. He heard her cackling up inside because she knew how much she got under his skin. The hair on his neck bristled to show his back towards his worst enemy, but he knew she had played out her little mind-game with him. She wanted to establish how alone he was and to remind him how she would destroy everything he would ever hold close.

She was kind of successful.

Derek's arms tightened around the hurt kid.


	8. Chapter 8

Derek scrubbed his face with both hands and resisted the urge to doze off. He hated hospitals, but not because of the reasons the humans hated it. He could smell the despair, the pain, the bone-deep grief and the hopelessness which far outweighed the smell of relief and happiness. All his instincts were screaming to him to beat it because the sheriff would be here soon and he was probably going to get shot. Again.

And while it wouldn’t be a wolfsbane bullet, it would hurt nonetheless.

“Hello,” he looked up at the hesitant voice. It was Scott’s mom, Melissa, who had kindly lent him a blanket as he was shivering while waiting in the cold hospital lobby. He never had the time to go back to the house and put on a shirt. Or shoes. He was probably looking like a hobo. The woman seemed minutes away from offering him food or ask him if he had a place to stay (he hadn’t actually).

“Is she...” he started and cleared his throat because his voice was scratchy, “is she awake?”

“She is and her father is there with her.”

Derek uncurled from the ball he had curled into and put his feet down on the floor. Why didn’t he see the sheriff going past him? He must have zoned out completely for a bit.

“She has been asking after you,” Melissa smiled at him. “You are Derek, right?”

“Yeah,” Derek stood up. He was scared of getting shot, but the quicker he got this over with the better. “I am Derek.”

“I am Melissa,” she said, oblivious to the fact that Derek knew her from his clandestine visits to Scott’s room. He had seen her picture on the fridge and even if he hadn’t, her scent was a dead giveaway. “I think you better let her see your face. I told her that we offered treatment but you are very stubborn and you refused.”

“I am fine,” Derek shuffled from foot to foot. “Can you please take me to her?” he paused. “If that’s OK.”

He was perfectly aware where she was. He could follow her scent which was still lingering in the lobby, the smell of blood and pain and her unique smell that was becoming increasingly familiar. But he didn’t want to appear even weirder than he had already managed to do after appearing in the Beacon Hills Memorial hospital shirtless and bare-feet, carrying an unconscious girl in his arms.

Melissa eyed him critically. She had a stern but kind face and she reminded him a bit of his mother. Derek wanted to hide from the all-knowing gaze.

“I think you better clean up a bit before I take you to meet her,” she said neutrally. “You have blood on your chin.”

Derek wiped his mouth hastily.

Melissa handed him a blue scrub. “And it’s probably a good idea to meet the parent with a little bit less of a skin-show.”

“I didn’t have...” Derek clamped his mouth shut, knowing he would only dig himself a deeper grave.

“I am not saying anything,” Melissa looked amused. “Sasha is technically an adult and it’s not my business what or whom she...”

“It’s not what you think...or what it looks like,” Derek said, feeling his ears heat up. He seldom got so flustered talking to people, but then, moms tended to have this effect on him.

“All I know is that you probably saved her life because I could tell that you ran the whole way,” Melissa put her hands in the air. “And that you waited, which makes you innocent, in my book at least, in whatever happened to her.” Then, her eyes turned hard. “But at the same time I am a parent and the closest thing to mom Sasha ever had. So, if she so much as hints that you are the reason she got hurt...”

Derek nodded tightly because he understood the instinct to protect. He also knew that he _was_ the reason no matter what, but he was not suicidal (yet). So, he kept mum and followed Melissa meekly.

He hoped the sheriff didn’t shoot him in the kneecap because it hurt like a bitch.

**Author's Note:**

> Read my original fantasy novel on my website [here](https://www.theauthorkamalika.org/).


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